Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Fountain Pen Doodling

When I used to think about drawing, a lot of things came to mind with which to do it. Graphite, charcoal, pastels, maybe even a fineliner or a biro.

During the last weeks this view has shifted a bit. I still love pencils and especially my Derwent Inktense pencils and blocks (especially the blocks are awesome, the colours seem to explode once touched by water - if you like watercolour pencils you should definitely try those), but then I started to doodle with my fountain pens and I'm really enjoying this rather a lot.

For writing I love broad nibs, but I have a couple of fine ones too and they always come in handy on occasions like these - even better if they're flexible.

If wishes were fishes... we'd all cast nets.

The above was done with a Waterman Ideal and Diamine Majestic Blue ink (though that one's far from ideal because it doesn't flow well enough - and while drawing, a hard starting pen is even more annoying than while writing) on a Midori Traveler's Notebook sketchbook refill. I bought that refill before it crossed my mind I would really fill a lot of pages with drawings and I certainly won't buy one of those again for the paper is a major letdown in my opinion. It's supposed to take ink and watercolour well but there is a lot of bleed through with either of them and also feathering when using the smallest amount of flex.
(That iris is actually circular, by the way. It just looks odd on the picture. Someone needs to whip my shooting perspective into line.)

I want a strange doll for Christmas.

This one was done with a fine-nibbed Pelikan M800 and Montblanc Midnight Blue on cartridge paper, which also shows a little bleed-through on ink heavy spots like the pupil but is okay overall. Being not really my cup of tea for writing - too boring -, I like Midnight Blue quite a lot for sketches, it's a nice colour and doesn't smudge when dry. It's also a bit more water resistant than most inks though it still will wash out quite much when washed over with a wet paintbrush.

Do you know a truly waterproof fountain pen ink? This never really mattered to me before so I hardly know anything about them. The only ink that really took well to being painted over with watercolours was india ink, but that means a dip pen. Meh.


4 comments:

  1. I highly recommend Sailor Nano Black as a waterproof ink.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! Will try that one. I think Sailor also has a blue-black waterproof ink, have you tried that one?

      Delete
  2. Yes, the Sei boka blue-black (not the Jentle Blue black) they share the same attributes

    ReplyDelete